What was the deal with the elections anyway? As far as I can tell from the unclear reports, it seems that the opposition encouraged all its supportersto boycott the election (thereby increasing Nasty M's vote share) then turned around and said "look! Maduro has a much bigger margin than he should have! Rigged!"
I'm fairly sure thats a misunderstanding, but what was actually going on?
It's not a misunderstanding, that's entirely what happened. It's a pattern they've repeated over and over. They push things as far as they go, to get a reaction (like setting fire to cars or starting riots) then if they get any security force reaction they go "see? they're fascists!"
Maduro is no saint, but many of the hardline opposition are more or less far-right card-carrying fascists in all but name. This is the thing that's the most worrying outcome: if they tear down the current state but the wrong people take the reins.
Remember, a Venezuelan government prior to Chavez carried out a large-scale massacre of protestors back in 1992. The death toll estimates vary from "official" estimate of 300, to human-rights group estimates of 3000. These are the people who want back into power, except now they're more radicalized with far-right activists than before.
When the 2002 coup against Chavez happened, the police, who were loyal to the previous regime (and many still are, as many of the police still predate the Chavez years) who carried out masscares were just straight up shooting people in the street. There is footage. The question is: are they going to restrain themselves or is there going to a purge of all supporters of the socialist party (which is, you know, half the country) and all socialist party associated programs such as the foodbanks and free health clinics?
In 2002 the coup government just outright (it's on film) abolished the constitution, human rights laws, the parliament and the supreme court among other things. There's no other word for what was left than "dictatorship" when the military installs a ruler and eliminates all other organs of government. The opposition has been big on "amnesty" for everyone involved in that coup, because many of them are the same politicians now that are opposing Maduro. D'ya trust the straight-up the 1930s style fascist coup-plotters any more than you trust Maduro, that's the question here. Sure, maybe this new president guy is ok, IDK. But plenty of the people who are on his side of politics are
definitely not ok. You think Trump supporters are bad? Some of these right-wing Venezeulan "opposition" guys have links with the Colombian death squads.
There's very strong evidence (documentary evidence plus direct eyewitness testimony from a reporter for CNN Spanish) that the Venezuela right-wing secretly organized a mass shooting of
their own supporters back in 2002 as the justification for the 2002 coup. The CNN Spanish reporter said on film that the coup-leaders pre-recorded their denunciation of the shootings several hours before the march actually happened, including details such as that it was marchers who came under sniper fire. Then, one of the march leaders order a sudden unexpected change in route and despite disagreement, was adamant that the right-wing supporters must take that route. It was only after this route-change that the marchers came under sniper fire, and then they played the general's video denouncing "sniper fire on marchers" on TV that they'd
pre-recorded. They needed to pre-record their "outrage" at the shootings because those generals needed to be in position to carry out the coup itself. This was definitely their "burning the Reichstag" moment. These are guys willing to murder their own supporters if it can be used as justification to seize power. Sprinkling some neo-nazis into a protest to provoke the police into responding is everyday low-grade stuff for these people.
Sure, Maduro is a terrible leader. but ... seriously, you're expecting me to trust
these people as the alternative. It's like "mussolini sucks, so why not get Hitler to take over?"